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We found the Westlake Policy Ride

This week has been hard but I will recap that week story about a trip to San Francisco. Let's go back to our previous adventures. On Sunday my daughter and I scheduled in our calendar two activities, cleaning up shul doesn't count as one of those. First she was going to the last session of baking class and then the other was to ride up to Fremont PCC and participate in the Policy Ride to show those Westlake Shareholders how slow we can ride. We care about safety too.

Baking class was fun except it looks like they didn't get to finish a project and this Super Bowl Sunday they get another session. My daughter was at first miffed because she says that all the little girls like to stand right next to her. Let me rephrase that, they like to smoosh her on either side of her body. For whatever reason little kids like her and try to smoosh her. She has her favorite smoshy baby next door so that keeps her satisfied.

After baking class we came home and downed a whole bunch of chicken soup Mr. Peyos had made. Considering I was going to bike far I wasn't thinking how this was going to limit my ride. Seriously, I wasn't thinking because I was way to excited to eat that soupy yummyness. Does it count as a Soupaneur if I eat it at home? After eating we set off. Mr. Peyos was going to join us on our social activism ride because he had a review to do.

We start biking and I contemplate taking the light rail half way. Well, by the time I figured it out we were almost to downtown. What else happened? Ugh, I need to use the facilities because of soup. So, I biked faster. We finally made it to Barnes and Nobles downtown and went in. By this time we knew we were late for the policy ride. After that might needed break, we headed to Westlake to find the bike policy people. When we get to the Lake Union/Westlake business coridor we use the darn sidewalk and bike slow. We saw a few people on bikes but nothing that constituted a group ride. At some point we thought being 20 minutes late was too late until we came across a man who looked just like my bike twin's husband. He was riding his orange Brompton. Not to far following behind was my bike twin with her cute daughter all bundled up in purple.They didn't see us until we started waving and followed by them was Madi with her two kids strapped and straight jacketed on the bike.

So we biked slow behind everyone else and then they stopped in front of that huge Chinese restaurant to talk. I could hear nothing. What I did hear was someone say, "How many of us have had a encounter with a cyclist?" Huh? What the......? Actually in all my pedestrian life I have NEVER had a close call with a person riding a bike, not even with the Jimmy John's delivery guys on Madison. What gives? Was this an infiltrator. I don't know.

Hey we want safety too. We ain't speed demons.

We stopped another time and more stuff I couldn't hear. Oh well, at least we participated as a family presence. My bike twin's daughter reached out to my daughter and wanted to hold her hand while we rode. This made my daughter nervous because she knew I was trying to manged the slow pace and didn't want me to fall. It was cute.

This bike ride stopped a lot. We went slow. Slow pokey slow. It was nice to see families on bikes and not just people with hi-viz wear. I understand the need to feel like you have to look like an day glow banana but I think that if we are to get more people on bikes you have to start showing people that we can just wear whatever we want while biking. In fact, those people on the Fremont Solstice ride wear nothing, hahahah. In the picture above can you see the shadow of the girls holding hands?

I actually talked to a lady who said he never bikes in this area because she has been hit twice. Once was in the parking lot and another time while riding on the sidewalk. So, some people in the group didn't feel safe to do this route on a regular basis. I have to admit, if I want to get to Ballard or Fremont I go the long way and coming from the south I take the lane under the Viaduct road and then on to Elliot Bay Ave. From there I go through the Ship Canal path. I find this pleasant and less aggravating than having to be paranoid about a sudden car. Some cars are very quiet, especially one like a Prius.

If you want to read about what people actually said and on a more serious note check out Tom's recap from Seattle Bike Blog. I couldn't hear anything, it sounded like the Charlie Brown cartoon when the teacher talks, "whah..whah...whah...". Plus, my kid was begging me to take her somewhere where she could throw rocks and sticks into some body of water. Then she wanted food other than dried pineapple. So, after this stop we head home and down on Westlake road to Whole Foods.

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